June 12, 2025 • 31 mins
If you’re looking for more strategies to operate and manage your freight business efficiently, look no further and listen to our guest, Kyle Lintner!
Kyle emphasizes improving cash flow and profitability, key business assessment processes, the importance of automation, balancing technology and human interaction, and leveraging AI tools for various tasks!
About Kyle Lintner
Born, raised, and residing in Chicago, Kyle Lintner is an unapologetic Cubs fan, free market enthusiast, and logical tamer of risk. Utilizing 25 years of investment market experience, Kyle employs a unique methodology to solve problems within supply chains. With an objective, analytical point of view, Kyle is a frequent contributor in print, television, and radio for unbiased assessments of current freight market dynamics, conditions, and industry participants.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Came back with a bank hey oh Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when I'm getting to the back hey Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when the lane moving fast hey Let them all cross if they hate then let them hate to make a bigger balls hey.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
What is up, ladies and gentlemen? We are back. We are live. It is the Freight Coach podcast, the top podcast in transportation, coming to you guys every single weekday, 8:30am Pacific, 10:30 Central, to break down some industry headlines. But most importantly, you guys provide some actual insight into what you can do with all of this information. If this is your first time tuning in, welcome. This is the real side of freight, ladies and gentlemen. And I say that before every single show. And what I mean by that is I only speak with transportation professionals.
(00:51):
Professionals, because at the end of the day, you guys, I want to talk to the right individuals who have done what you're looking to do or who are currently doing what you're trying to achieve, so you can take that information, apply it, utilize it, and see a meaningful difference in your business and your life. Happy Thursday, everybody. I got a very special guest for you guys here today. We're going to talk about something that I personally think is the hardest part of business, and that is process implementation and, like, actually building systems for your business because it takes so much longer than you want, and frankly, you don't know if it's actually going to work. So with that being said, I got my good friend Kyle Lintner back on the show today. Kyle, thank you so much for taking the time to join me.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Hey, buddy, how are you doing? Long time no see.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I know, man. It's only been like, what, eight days since you were out here?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, too long.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I was gonna say. You got that Arizona tan going for you right now, man. I know Chicago's not putting out that kind of weather.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
It has lingered. It has lasted. I'm thankful. It's because it's. There's actually moisture here. So the tans lasted instead of fading.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Oh, that's awesome, man. I love it. So, dude, what's new in your world, man? How's everything going?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Everything's going well, thank you. Doing well. Still kicking butt and taking names, but.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Trying to stay. Not too busy, you know, Gotta leave a little. A little bit of room not to work, but otherwise things have been good. How about you?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
No, you know, same, man. Like freight. Freight's been freight. At the end of the day, you know, it. It's taken a little Bit longer than I had anticipated to kind of like really get things up and running again, you know. But I do feel like we're, we hit our stride. Like we've had back to back really busy months and June is shaping up to be fairly busy as well. And you know, it's just like with anything, man. It's just about building in those consistencies inside of your revenue. I mean, you get it right? Like you're self employed. It's. That's like, you know, dealing with the ebbs and flows of a lot of that is. It's challenging, man. And it's really just trying to piece all of that together.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
That's a really good point. I think often in this industry a lot of people like to look past the fact that at the end of the day you need to make money as a business and whatever is required to make money, you need to cut corners when you need not cut corners. You need to cut costs when you need to cut costs. We don't ever cut corners here. Yeah, and that, it's that last part I think that's overlooked is the cutting of the cost. Because we always hear people complain about rates, rates. Everything's always about rates. Rates are easy for everyone to talk about, digest, I get it. But rates are where they're at for a reason and rates are going to stay there for a reason. That reason is cutting costs.
(03:22):
The people who pay for the ship bills want their costs to be lower. And it's the responsibility of everybody else, broker and carrier, to cut their costs to make those rates fit for them.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, it, you know, one thing I think is kind of like alarming in my opinion is how nobody is like even discussing, like what if things don't change? You know, it's like we're so when is it going to get changed? When is it going to change? When are rates going to increase? When is this going to happen? When is this going to happen? What if it doesn't? Right? Like, and that's just kind of the way that I have approached this now, at least for the last six months, because I'm like, if there has been no real signs. And when I say real, I mean 60 days of actual change, not oh, hey look, it was blitzweek. Is everything back reports this and it's, you know, everybody's so short term with that.
(04:09):
There has been nothing that I have seen and there is still currently nothing that I am seeing that would point that things are going to change for the foreseeable future. Like maybe not even until this time.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Of next year, I don't think rates change, period. I think this is it, give or take minor fluctuations. These are rates and everyone's going to have to figure out how to make them work for you. And by now it's been long enough. Rates have been relatively flat for well over two years now. You should be able to know how to run your business based off today's rates. And if you can't, then you probably shouldn't be in business. But I think if everyone's, if anyone is having a hard time understanding where, how they could decrease their costs and how to increase some efficiencies, you know, the cat is out of the bag now with the easiest way to do all that stuff. I hate the term saying AI. Really. AI just means automation.
(04:57):
There are so many things that can be done at a company now that can be automated. And when things are automated, you know, the costs decrease. And if you're not automating things that can be automated at your organization, your costs are going to remain elevated and then you're non competitive with everyone else that is in the industry. And if you are non competitive, you lose out.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, no, I mean, you're right. You have to find how do you scrape in claw to reduce your overhead in any way you possibly can to increase your profitability. Right. Like you have to do that. You have to look at it. But like, dude, that's just being in business in general. Right. Like you have to keep your cost downs, you cannot inflate your costs and you have to manage your cash flow properly. You know, I feel like that is one thing that is often overlooked as well, man, is. I mean, I mean the data is out there. You can just Google this. But like small businesses, like, or most businesses, I would say like 90% of businesses they have said are 30 days from going out of business every single month due to cash flow constraints.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Yes, cash is always king. Cash is the most important thing in this business. You know, I'm very fortunate in one of the roles that I have fractionally. I'm CFO at Rocket Shipping, a company that you know very well. Gabe's a friend of the show. You know, at Rockets, one of the things we kind of pride ourselves on is not only are we self funded, but we're self financed. So we don't use factoring. A brokerage at the end of the day is a bank. You have receivables and payables and the float in between is not only your risk, but you know, that's Your margin, the margin in between is the money that your company makes and anywhere that you're leaking margin, which would be giving it to a factoring company to handle not just invoices, but payment flow.
(06:36):
You know, you're giving away free money, you're giving away money that your company earned. So the ability for us to keep some of that in house not only improves our profitability, but honestly, at the end of the day, if we are running more profitable than our competitors, we can offer a lower rate than our competitors. And at the end of the day, that's all we're trying to do, is be the best that we can for our customers. It's not just service, but if you really think of yourself as a partner to your customers and you're working for your customers, as everybody likes to say, it isn't having 24, seven or being the person that answers the phone, you know, at 7pm on a Friday to do the work, to cover the load that's still there.
(07:12):
It's not just that those are almost table stakes these days. If you're truly a partner to your customer, you want to do better for your customer, which would be providing better service than you did yesterday at a rate lower than you did yesterday. And if the way to do that is by decreasing costs through efficiencies, you know, what are you waiting for?
Speaker 2 (07:31):
No, I mean I think a lot of individuals need to really assess how they are actually managing their customers freight to start. Right? Like are you looking at all of these opportunities as hell? Yeah, I'm cashing checks on this one. Or are you looking at a couple of shipments that are, you know, maybe moving via ltl where you benefit financially from it, but your customer is at a disadvantage and are you assessing their operations and being like, hey, we could combine this, let's make this into a multi drop load. One pick, three drop, whatever that looks like. And it's going to deliver that actual cost savings down to your customers. Because eventually when you do that long enough for customers, price does become secondary in the sense like they're not going to push back on much because again there's that trust.
(08:14):
Like you said, answering the phone Friday night at 7pm is literally table stakes. Congratulations you guys. Like that's what every sales rep in every industry, or at least high performing ones are truly willing to do out there. So like there's really not a value add that comes with it. It's how are you going to ever uncover cost savings for your customers? Because at the end of the day you guys, they have to make money as well. And when you look at everything that's going on, and I just saw a bunch of posts about this, excuse me, this over the last 24 hours now with everything that was just announced with China and tariffs and everything and what that means for small businesses and stuff.
(08:53):
So it's like most manufacturers, suppliers, whatever term you want to put in front of them, depending on where they source their raw materials in the supply chain, are going to look at it now is how. Because like they have to try and say, how do we not pass this cost on to their customers? Right? Because ultimately, and they're going to look and see where can we shave a couple of pennies to not have to pass that along to the end user. Because if, again, if you look at everything right now, you look at credit card debt's at an all time high. The last time I checked.
(09:27):
In this country, people don't have a ton of discretionary income right now and they will bring that in of, hey, if this thing costs a dollar fifty at the shelf, but this costs $1.35, where is their money going to go? And that is a very real thing which a lot of Americans are dealing with right now.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Yes, yes and yes. It always makes you think. I'm not certain why, but in a previous life, in a previous position, way back in the day, the price of the inputs to most of the food that we eat, you know, the grains that we grow, the prices on those double, tripled and then some of them quadrupled. Back in 0607 08, a lot of food manufacturers did not increase prices at the time because they said we want to hold where it's at to our customers to maintain customer loyalty. Obviously at some point they had to allow prices to catch up then, but the same thing goes on now with tariffs.
(10:17):
Like you said, if I'm importing something, I don't necessarily want to transfer that tariff over to my customer or maybe just a portion of it because I don't want to pass along the price increase. I have this customer, let me try and keep them. They're going to look for savings elsewhere, you know, and it's no different inside of what we're doing here. Within logistics. If you want to understand how best to treat a customer, treat them like they're yourself. What would you want to do if you were in that person's shoes? And you said it too, they've got their own company with their own needs and their own balance sheet that they're trying to run and the money that they're trying to save, it's no different.
(10:48):
Now the person that you're talking to on that other line or the person on the other side of that email, they're responsible for a P and L just like you. And they don't want to go back to their boss and say, yeah, prices went up, nothing I can do about it. It's much better if they can go back to the boss and say, remember that provider that we're using? They actually lowered their rate or they kept the rate the same way everybody else was going up. And our service levels have remained the same. You know, I got a customer for life.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, no, I'm right there with you. And that's why it's like for me, I'm always looking at my internal processes. I'm like, hey, how can we just shave a couple of seconds off our response time? How do we, how do we just become and perform and at a higher level? And then again, how do we keep our expenses at an all time low? Because that is what is going to sustain like this, right? Like if you're out there and say you're using a third party warehousing service to, you know, store your product at for regional distribution and everything else, and that, you know, warehouse A has no debt or minimal debt and they can offer say $25 a pallet space. I'm making numbers up here, right here, you guys.
(11:50):
But then again, there's this other one out there that is at $40 a pallet space because they have debt, they have a bunch of, you know, inflated whatever you want to put out there more times than not. And then again, everybody's good, right? Like for the most part, everybody's service is good, everybody's communication is good. We're all kind of at an equal playing field. At the end of the day, that is going to be the deciding factor on who people work with out there. And more companies are going to continue to invest into automation. They're going to continue to be like, how can we improve our internal processes to shave response time, do anything to stand out in the crowd. It's like it's extremely competitive in every industry. I don't know why people in transportation think we're special snowflakes.
(12:32):
And like this shouldn't come down to our industry and affect our day to day.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah, I don't have the answer for that last question, but when people always ask this stuff, so at first they say this sounds great, you Know, everything sounds super easy, but it's not easy. And in real life it's hard to put it in practice. And I disagree with that because then the follow up is, okay, fine, well, how do you do it? And I think it's kind of simple, you know, what do you do in your everyday life? I'm sure at some point in your life, for everyone that's listening to this, there was a time when money was tight. Yeah, everybody does the exact same thing, right? You review what you're spending money on and where can I trim expenses. Do I need this? Do I need that? Can I reduce this? Running a business is no different. Do I need this?
(13:13):
Do I need that? Can we possibly reduce this here? Can I eliminate this? Once you've lowered all of your costs, you know, that's how you can lower the rate to the customer. You know, what you choose to charge is up to you, or what you choose to cover or any of the other stuff that falls in freight. Now that's up to you. But you can't dictate to the customer what necessarily to charge because if you're too far out of line, there's a thousand other people that will provide a quote that's cheaper to that customer. So the market rates what you choose to do with the expenses inside of your organization, that separates you from everyone else.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
No, I'm not there with you. And so like, how do people, like when you're working with your clients, for example, Kyle, how are you assessing their operations to see, like, hey, we need to clean this process up, we need to change this, maybe change a different trajectory and go in a different direction. And you know, the hardest part in, at least for me, as somebody who's, you know, bootstrapped and just kind of figured shit out over the last five years, the hardest part is no matter how confident you are, you don't really know if it's working for about 90 days. Like, when it boils down to it, you really don't.
(14:18):
No matter how many letters you have behind your name and how many university degrees you have, you don't actually know if shit's going to work out until you've applied it for an extended period of time. And you could burn a ton of capital in that time figuring it out.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, that's a really good point, is that no matter what you do or no matter what change you decide to put in, you go, you have to allow it time to work. There needs to be an observation period. Even if you think you have the Greatest plan in the world. You have to watch it happen to see if it really does work. You know, aside from that, I think when I come to a company, the very first things I do to give away a little secret sauce, I ask for the financials, whatever they want to give me, whatever that can show what they have, the health of the organization financially. I asked for an expense list because I honest to God, I do the exact same thing that I just mentioned to you.
(15:06):
I go through what they're spending their money on to see what could possibly be eliminated or reduced. And the last thing that I ask for is probably my favorite. I always ask for an org chart. Just because a lot of companies can't produce it immediately, they don't have it, which I think is an issue. But once they've gone through it and they've produced the org chart, kind of the same thinking that goes through with that expense list. I look at the org chart to see anywhere where there are redundancies or too many of something. I'm not saying I like to come in and fire everybody that's working to reduce cost. That doesn't make any sense.
(15:37):
But if you ask a company for an org chart, and it's always the same thing when it's a broker, and it's always the same thing when it's a carrier. When they're a carrier, they have too many dispatchers. They're brokering their own trucks. They don't have enough contract freight. It's all spot. They've got a million dispatchers for the drivers, and all they do is try and find loads every single day on load boards. You know, when they're a carrier, they have too many carrier sales because they're not spending the time to find dedicated carriers for their freight. Maybe because they don't have dedicated freight. But regardless, they have too many carrier sales reps. And all they're doing is calling and calling and trying to find carriers to cover their loads every day.
(16:08):
So when I see the expenses with bloat or the expenses not allocated where they should be, and I see an org chart that's not one, streamlined and two full of redundancies, you can start to identify the areas where, you know, you can improve upon. And that's all it is, you know, to handle the process is to take me from the beginning and walk me through it. Let me see this from start to finish on how you do it. We can see anywhere where we shouldn't be repeating the same thing. The redundancies have to go. Anything that Takes too long to do, has to be improved upon. And those are the things where you can start to identify very early on and very easily what could I alter, what could I automate? Maybe what can I outsource or what can I eliminate?
(16:50):
And when you're going down that path, it gets really easy to start improving. And once you've improved, the savings really do come almost immediately.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
No, I mean I couldn't agree more. This is something that I probably think about more than anything in my day to day Kyle, is how do we do more with less? And then on top of that, because everybody knows what tasks take them the longest throughout their entire day, right? For us it's order entry, it's every time. Because every customer is different, right? Every customer tenders freight different. There's no one size fits all for all of this stuff. So from my perspective right now, that's our biggest time suck out there is. And there's you know, there's tools that we're exploring to introduce automation inside of our operation from there. But like that's one area as a freight broker that depending on the volume of freight that you have, like you can start there, right?
(17:41):
And then you know, like with, you know, there's other automation tools and then you know, the back office support for example, like you know like with factoring depending on the size of your organization, it's a great option opportunity to go in there and then have somebody do it. Yes, you're paying a fee for it. But again like that is just tasks off of your plate. As a business owner, instead of you going through a hundred invoices a day or whatever that looks like signing off on stuff, you can look to outsource some of those tasks internally inside of your operation to free up more of your time so you can focus on improving your cash flow, revenue generating activities.
(18:18):
Because sales always cures everything and you should not be spent and with the technology and the tools that are at people's disposal right now, Kyle, you should not sit here and say oh I have too much busy work and I can't do sales anymore. That, that's a lie. You're avoiding the pain of rejection of sales at that moment because like dude there is, there's just too much that is out there right now where you should be able to get all of your quotes taken care. I mean geez, Dan Hellman with, you know, with Tabby and those guys like that, like they have a great tool that can help automate your inbox and everything, quote all your Loads for you if that's what you want to explore. So there's tools that are out there.
(18:57):
You know Chad, with avrl, there's a bunch of people that have a lot of automation tools at your disposal right now. Hell, most load boards give, have a book it now feature, you know, like there's a lot of stuff at your disposal where you can focus on revenue generating activities. You're not busy, all right, you're bogging yourself with busy work. Because for whatever reason, I'm even more convinced of this, Kyle. The more people that I interview for this show, 95% of my day will be automated at some point. When we have the capital to disperse in that direction, 95% of our day is going to be automated. So the 5% that can't will consume 95% of our time. And that's developing relationships, carrier relationship, customer relationships.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
And it should be right. If you can free up time in your day, why would you not? How could you not? I think everybody at any organization, no matter how big they are, your role is to increase margin, everything that you do. So you can either increase the revenue by being a sales rep and go get new business, you can improve the efficiencies of the organization which frees up more time, which allows you to go get more revenue. So that is a margin creating role. Or you can do things that optimize the efficiencies of the organization. Same thing. It increases the margin of the company. I think anything that can be automated in an organization now has to be automated.
(20:24):
We talk now at table stakes of people that answer at 7pm or track and trace all these things that five years ago were groundbreaking. Now that are table stakes in a year or two from now, if you're an organization that has not automated back office tasks or some of the redundancies. And just like you mentioned it, quoting building a load, you're left in the dust.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Because the difference between a company that has and has not is not just visible but tangible. They have a cheaper, they have a cheaper rate, they can accept a lower rate, they can run leaner than you. And there's nothing you can do about that.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
No, I agree, man. I think that there's going to be two camps of individuals here in the next probably three to five years. And it's the businesses that fail are going to be the ones that don't adopt automation at all. And there's going to be a large majority of them. And then there's going to be the businesses that fail that had too much automation because they're like, oh, he. We can just fire everybody and we can just automate everything. And then. And this isn't transportation specific. This is like, across the board. I truly feel that way. I feel like there's going to be some people who over automate, and then there's going to be some who don't automate at all or don't implement any AI tools at all, and both of them are going to be obsolete.
(21:35):
I truly feel this way in three to five years because, you know, like, we're at a very unique time, though, where AI and automation is still very unknown. Yes, it's known. People are talking about it, but it's very unknown. And it's like it could actually unleash a golden age in this country that might not have been seen since the Industrial revolution, man. Like, there's a lot that you can do with this. And then this is going to spawn new jobs, new careers, new industries, and everything else that comes along with it. I just think, like, it's moving so fast, it's really challenging to put a pulse on. All right. This is the direction that it's actually heading.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Yeah. And there's obviously not just resistance to change, but there's some scar tissue, I think, inside of the industry from every time something new comes along. It's the next best thing that's going to fix all of our problems. And it never is this. And I hate saying this because this is another little saying that everybody throws out. This time it's different. I think this time it is different. But if you're at either extreme on this, it does not work. If you're in the extreme of I'm not automating anything, AI doesn't work. I'm not using it. My customers can get a hold of me whenever they want. I talk to people. Stone Age, okay? It's welcome to the Flintstones, and you might as well just take a horse to work.
(22:52):
The other people on the opposite side of that, in their own extreme, are those that want to automate every single thing and have AI do every single thing. That also doesn't work. You know, I think there is value in communicating with a human. It doesn't take too much imagination or even experience. We can all think of the times that we've called a customer service for something else and got extremely upset when we make the phone call. And on the other end, it's the bot that says, how can I help you today? And I have demoed enough of these things to know that the current AI agents don't sound like bots. It's very casual conversation. It flows, it's nice and easy. But there will be things that we understand or learn to let us know that it is a bot.
(23:29):
And then people are going to be right back at that same place. I want to talk to human. I don't want to talk to this bot. You can't automate everything. We can't make everything AI, just like we can't ignore all of it and say, no AI for me. But somewhere in the middle with all of these things that are just tasks, any task should be automated. Anything that requires a level of thought or some critical thinking, that's what remains with the human. That's the human touch. That's what we interact with. Humans are the best robots, after all. But somewhere in between those two, in that healthy balance, is what's going to be left. And those are going to be the companies that not just exist and survive, but thrive. Because those that don't are going to disappear and their business needs to go somewhere.
(24:09):
It's gonna go into the hands of the people that do optimize and automate.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Yeah, no, I'm, I'm right there with you, man. I think that there's, I'm almost like, you know, from my perspective, I'm like, man, how much freight can I move with just me? With the right automation tools, can I do 100 loads in a day by myself? Like, can I do 200 loads, 300 loads? I, I don't know, man. I, I truly don't. But I feel like with the rapid pace that things are progressing, there's a lot of opportunities that are going to come about. Right, that, like that. Right. And I feel like there will come a day. I don't know, I think, I forget who posted this out.
(24:42):
I don't know if there's going to be a one person operation doing a billion dollars a year, but I bet we get it down to the point where there's about maybe 100 people doing a billion dollars a year in freight.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Yeah, I think when I first heard that kind of stuff, somebody posed the idea of essentially freight agents that have enormous books of business because they can automate everything. And I think at some levels a lot of that will be true. If you think about maybe a potential ideal for how you can use some of these tools to increase your business. You know, like I just said, anything that's a task can be automated and will be automated, but it's not this crazy futuristic idea where we're going to have these bots that are just scanning these massive lists and behind the scenes doing everything for you, and we're going to have loads booked with Iranian terrorists that we are masquerading as some sort of a real company and all the crazy stuff that people want to put out there.
(25:38):
But if you took the time as a human and you had your book of business not just on the customer side, but you had the carriers that you've spoken to, the carriers that you've established a relationship with, you understand their business needs. The ones that you're trying to set up on a dedicated lane or continuous business with them, and you've got X amount of them. We'll say 100 for that. When you do get a load that needs to be covered, instead of having to reach out to all 100 of them or, you know, blast an email, there's tools that you can use now that help you get to those people faster. And same goes for them on the other side to receive them.
(26:11):
It's that kind of stuff that allows you to do more, faster, you know, spread yourself across many different areas all at once immediately. Those are the types of tools that make you more efficient and give you more time in your day. It's not the crazy idea of the bot's just going to do everything. For me, the AI is going to quote, build, cover, bill, collect. I don't do anything, I just flip the switch. There are customers out there that want a 100% transactional business, but there's not that many. It is a relationship business and it's a relationship business for a reason. Because there are so many variables and intangibles in this industry and those are the things that can and do go wrong. There needs to be human intervention for that stuff because that's the things that you can't automate.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
No, I mean from my seat. That is. You're very accurate when you say there's not that many people out there that just view user transaction. It's few and far between. It's not the majority. Like a lot of people like to kind of make it out there in social media. That means that happened to them one time 10 years ago and they just gave up. And that's just the way that they perceive the world now.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Somebody took a cheaper rate to them and they want to blame it on it. So it's transactional. No, you quoted $5amile for 1200 miles.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Exactly. And you know, I look at it like this. Like, you could jump on CHAT GPT or whatever right now and just start there, right? I think that will open up a lot of people's eyes. And, you know, again, if you've never built a process, a sales process for people to follow, drop that in ChatGPT. Just start small, right? Start asking the questions. It's amazing how fast that can spit out a bunch of stuff. I mean, dude, I use it every single day. I like, I truly do. If I'm having like, writer's block on, hey, what do I want to, you know, like titles for the podcast and stuff like that, I'll drop in the topics of conversation in there and say, create 10 podcast titles for me. Do I use them?
(28:04):
No, but like, it helps me piece words together and I'm like, damn, this is sick. All right, boom, this is what I'm going to use now. And you know, same thing with. If you've never built a, an internal process on how you want somebody to answer the phone inside of your organization or how do you want people to reply to an email? Just start asking chatgpt some, just basic questions. And if you don't want to start with that, take the last book you read. Because this is how I started. I took the last book I read and I said, summarize this book for me. And then it literally spit out the top 10 points of the entire book. And I'm like, holy shit, that is 100% accurate. And it is. Is it perfect? Absolutely not.
(28:45):
But again, you need to start getting comfortable with where it is. And it's not Google, you guys. It's not at all. It's probably the opposite of it, in my opinion. And you can get in there, but like, my point is you got to start small and get comfortable with it because it's here. It's going to grow and it's going to help you in a lot of areas. It's truly going to make you can make you into that all star performer that we all think we are in our head. This now actually makes it possible.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Yeah, I completely agree. Dip your toe in the water and feel around and get comfortable because it's here to stay.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, and that's it, man. Because if you don't, somebody's going to. Man, Kyle, that flew by, as it always does every time you're on this show. I feel like we could go for like three hours. But, you know, I have a day job. You have a day job of my listeners. But if you're taking on anything, man. How do people find you?
Speaker 3 (29:39):
Check me on LinkedIn. I don't really go on there too much anymore, but the messages come through.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Perfect. That works. If you guys can't find Kyle for whatever reason, hit me up. I will gladly put you guys in contact with them. That will be it for today, ladies and gentlemen, as always, if you got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show. You guys, if you're feeling really ambitious, rank the show on itunes and Spotify. Because if you saw value, your network's going to see value as well. I appreciate you guys. I love you guys. And we'll be talking to you soon. We have an outro in. Okay, so you gotta hang.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Came back with a bank Moving fast Hey Let them all cross if they hate then let them hate them Make a bigger boss Hey.
Came back with a bank hey oh Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when I'm getting to the back hey Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when the lane moving fast hey Let them all cross if they hate then let them hate to make a bigger balls hey.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
What is up, ladies and gentlemen? We are back. We are live. It is the Freight Coach podcast, the top podcast in transportation, coming to you guys every single weekday, 8:30am Pacific, 10:30 Central, to break down some industry headlines. But most importantly, you guys provide some actual insight into what you can do with all of this information. If this is your first time tuning in, welcome. This is the real side of freight, ladies and gentlemen. And I say that before every single show. And what I mean by that is I only speak with transportation professionals.
(00:51):
Professionals, because at the end of the day, you guys, I want to talk to the right individuals who have done what you're looking to do or who are currently doing what you're trying to achieve, so you can take that information, apply it, utilize it, and see a meaningful difference in your business and your life. Happy Thursday, everybody. I got a very special guest for you guys here today. We're going to talk about something that I personally think is the hardest part of business, and that is process implementation and, like, actually building systems for your business because it takes so much longer than you want, and frankly, you don't know if it's actually going to work. So with that being said, I got my good friend Kyle Lintner back on the show today. Kyle, thank you so much for taking the time to join me.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Hey, buddy, how are you doing? Long time no see.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I know, man. It's only been like, what, eight days since you were out here?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, too long.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I was gonna say. You got that Arizona tan going for you right now, man. I know Chicago's not putting out that kind of weather.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
It has lingered. It has lasted. I'm thankful. It's because it's. There's actually moisture here. So the tans lasted instead of fading.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Oh, that's awesome, man. I love it. So, dude, what's new in your world, man? How's everything going?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Everything's going well, thank you. Doing well. Still kicking butt and taking names, but.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Trying to stay. Not too busy, you know, Gotta leave a little. A little bit of room not to work, but otherwise things have been good. How about you?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
No, you know, same, man. Like freight. Freight's been freight. At the end of the day, you know, it. It's taken a little Bit longer than I had anticipated to kind of like really get things up and running again, you know. But I do feel like we're, we hit our stride. Like we've had back to back really busy months and June is shaping up to be fairly busy as well. And you know, it's just like with anything, man. It's just about building in those consistencies inside of your revenue. I mean, you get it right? Like you're self employed. It's. That's like, you know, dealing with the ebbs and flows of a lot of that is. It's challenging, man. And it's really just trying to piece all of that together.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
That's a really good point. I think often in this industry a lot of people like to look past the fact that at the end of the day you need to make money as a business and whatever is required to make money, you need to cut corners when you need not cut corners. You need to cut costs when you need to cut costs. We don't ever cut corners here. Yeah, and that, it's that last part I think that's overlooked is the cutting of the cost. Because we always hear people complain about rates, rates. Everything's always about rates. Rates are easy for everyone to talk about, digest, I get it. But rates are where they're at for a reason and rates are going to stay there for a reason. That reason is cutting costs.
(03:22):
The people who pay for the ship bills want their costs to be lower. And it's the responsibility of everybody else, broker and carrier, to cut their costs to make those rates fit for them.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, it, you know, one thing I think is kind of like alarming in my opinion is how nobody is like even discussing, like what if things don't change? You know, it's like we're so when is it going to get changed? When is it going to change? When are rates going to increase? When is this going to happen? When is this going to happen? What if it doesn't? Right? Like, and that's just kind of the way that I have approached this now, at least for the last six months, because I'm like, if there has been no real signs. And when I say real, I mean 60 days of actual change, not oh, hey look, it was blitzweek. Is everything back reports this and it's, you know, everybody's so short term with that.
(04:09):
There has been nothing that I have seen and there is still currently nothing that I am seeing that would point that things are going to change for the foreseeable future. Like maybe not even until this time.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Of next year, I don't think rates change, period. I think this is it, give or take minor fluctuations. These are rates and everyone's going to have to figure out how to make them work for you. And by now it's been long enough. Rates have been relatively flat for well over two years now. You should be able to know how to run your business based off today's rates. And if you can't, then you probably shouldn't be in business. But I think if everyone's, if anyone is having a hard time understanding where, how they could decrease their costs and how to increase some efficiencies, you know, the cat is out of the bag now with the easiest way to do all that stuff. I hate the term saying AI. Really. AI just means automation.
(04:57):
There are so many things that can be done at a company now that can be automated. And when things are automated, you know, the costs decrease. And if you're not automating things that can be automated at your organization, your costs are going to remain elevated and then you're non competitive with everyone else that is in the industry. And if you are non competitive, you lose out.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, no, I mean, you're right. You have to find how do you scrape in claw to reduce your overhead in any way you possibly can to increase your profitability. Right. Like you have to do that. You have to look at it. But like, dude, that's just being in business in general. Right. Like you have to keep your cost downs, you cannot inflate your costs and you have to manage your cash flow properly. You know, I feel like that is one thing that is often overlooked as well, man, is. I mean, I mean the data is out there. You can just Google this. But like small businesses, like, or most businesses, I would say like 90% of businesses they have said are 30 days from going out of business every single month due to cash flow constraints.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Yes, cash is always king. Cash is the most important thing in this business. You know, I'm very fortunate in one of the roles that I have fractionally. I'm CFO at Rocket Shipping, a company that you know very well. Gabe's a friend of the show. You know, at Rockets, one of the things we kind of pride ourselves on is not only are we self funded, but we're self financed. So we don't use factoring. A brokerage at the end of the day is a bank. You have receivables and payables and the float in between is not only your risk, but you know, that's Your margin, the margin in between is the money that your company makes and anywhere that you're leaking margin, which would be giving it to a factoring company to handle not just invoices, but payment flow.
(06:36):
You know, you're giving away free money, you're giving away money that your company earned. So the ability for us to keep some of that in house not only improves our profitability, but honestly, at the end of the day, if we are running more profitable than our competitors, we can offer a lower rate than our competitors. And at the end of the day, that's all we're trying to do, is be the best that we can for our customers. It's not just service, but if you really think of yourself as a partner to your customers and you're working for your customers, as everybody likes to say, it isn't having 24, seven or being the person that answers the phone, you know, at 7pm on a Friday to do the work, to cover the load that's still there.
(07:12):
It's not just that those are almost table stakes these days. If you're truly a partner to your customer, you want to do better for your customer, which would be providing better service than you did yesterday at a rate lower than you did yesterday. And if the way to do that is by decreasing costs through efficiencies, you know, what are you waiting for?
Speaker 2 (07:31):
No, I mean I think a lot of individuals need to really assess how they are actually managing their customers freight to start. Right? Like are you looking at all of these opportunities as hell? Yeah, I'm cashing checks on this one. Or are you looking at a couple of shipments that are, you know, maybe moving via ltl where you benefit financially from it, but your customer is at a disadvantage and are you assessing their operations and being like, hey, we could combine this, let's make this into a multi drop load. One pick, three drop, whatever that looks like. And it's going to deliver that actual cost savings down to your customers. Because eventually when you do that long enough for customers, price does become secondary in the sense like they're not going to push back on much because again there's that trust.
(08:14):
Like you said, answering the phone Friday night at 7pm is literally table stakes. Congratulations you guys. Like that's what every sales rep in every industry, or at least high performing ones are truly willing to do out there. So like there's really not a value add that comes with it. It's how are you going to ever uncover cost savings for your customers? Because at the end of the day you guys, they have to make money as well. And when you look at everything that's going on, and I just saw a bunch of posts about this, excuse me, this over the last 24 hours now with everything that was just announced with China and tariffs and everything and what that means for small businesses and stuff.
(08:53):
So it's like most manufacturers, suppliers, whatever term you want to put in front of them, depending on where they source their raw materials in the supply chain, are going to look at it now is how. Because like they have to try and say, how do we not pass this cost on to their customers? Right? Because ultimately, and they're going to look and see where can we shave a couple of pennies to not have to pass that along to the end user. Because if, again, if you look at everything right now, you look at credit card debt's at an all time high. The last time I checked.
(09:27):
In this country, people don't have a ton of discretionary income right now and they will bring that in of, hey, if this thing costs a dollar fifty at the shelf, but this costs $1.35, where is their money going to go? And that is a very real thing which a lot of Americans are dealing with right now.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Yes, yes and yes. It always makes you think. I'm not certain why, but in a previous life, in a previous position, way back in the day, the price of the inputs to most of the food that we eat, you know, the grains that we grow, the prices on those double, tripled and then some of them quadrupled. Back in 0607 08, a lot of food manufacturers did not increase prices at the time because they said we want to hold where it's at to our customers to maintain customer loyalty. Obviously at some point they had to allow prices to catch up then, but the same thing goes on now with tariffs.
(10:17):
Like you said, if I'm importing something, I don't necessarily want to transfer that tariff over to my customer or maybe just a portion of it because I don't want to pass along the price increase. I have this customer, let me try and keep them. They're going to look for savings elsewhere, you know, and it's no different inside of what we're doing here. Within logistics. If you want to understand how best to treat a customer, treat them like they're yourself. What would you want to do if you were in that person's shoes? And you said it too, they've got their own company with their own needs and their own balance sheet that they're trying to run and the money that they're trying to save, it's no different.
(10:48):
Now the person that you're talking to on that other line or the person on the other side of that email, they're responsible for a P and L just like you. And they don't want to go back to their boss and say, yeah, prices went up, nothing I can do about it. It's much better if they can go back to the boss and say, remember that provider that we're using? They actually lowered their rate or they kept the rate the same way everybody else was going up. And our service levels have remained the same. You know, I got a customer for life.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, no, I'm right there with you. And that's why it's like for me, I'm always looking at my internal processes. I'm like, hey, how can we just shave a couple of seconds off our response time? How do we, how do we just become and perform and at a higher level? And then again, how do we keep our expenses at an all time low? Because that is what is going to sustain like this, right? Like if you're out there and say you're using a third party warehousing service to, you know, store your product at for regional distribution and everything else, and that, you know, warehouse A has no debt or minimal debt and they can offer say $25 a pallet space. I'm making numbers up here, right here, you guys.
(11:50):
But then again, there's this other one out there that is at $40 a pallet space because they have debt, they have a bunch of, you know, inflated whatever you want to put out there more times than not. And then again, everybody's good, right? Like for the most part, everybody's service is good, everybody's communication is good. We're all kind of at an equal playing field. At the end of the day, that is going to be the deciding factor on who people work with out there. And more companies are going to continue to invest into automation. They're going to continue to be like, how can we improve our internal processes to shave response time, do anything to stand out in the crowd. It's like it's extremely competitive in every industry. I don't know why people in transportation think we're special snowflakes.
(12:32):
And like this shouldn't come down to our industry and affect our day to day.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah, I don't have the answer for that last question, but when people always ask this stuff, so at first they say this sounds great, you Know, everything sounds super easy, but it's not easy. And in real life it's hard to put it in practice. And I disagree with that because then the follow up is, okay, fine, well, how do you do it? And I think it's kind of simple, you know, what do you do in your everyday life? I'm sure at some point in your life, for everyone that's listening to this, there was a time when money was tight. Yeah, everybody does the exact same thing, right? You review what you're spending money on and where can I trim expenses. Do I need this? Do I need that? Can I reduce this? Running a business is no different. Do I need this?
(13:13):
Do I need that? Can we possibly reduce this here? Can I eliminate this? Once you've lowered all of your costs, you know, that's how you can lower the rate to the customer. You know, what you choose to charge is up to you, or what you choose to cover or any of the other stuff that falls in freight. Now that's up to you. But you can't dictate to the customer what necessarily to charge because if you're too far out of line, there's a thousand other people that will provide a quote that's cheaper to that customer. So the market rates what you choose to do with the expenses inside of your organization, that separates you from everyone else.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
No, I'm not there with you. And so like, how do people, like when you're working with your clients, for example, Kyle, how are you assessing their operations to see, like, hey, we need to clean this process up, we need to change this, maybe change a different trajectory and go in a different direction. And you know, the hardest part in, at least for me, as somebody who's, you know, bootstrapped and just kind of figured shit out over the last five years, the hardest part is no matter how confident you are, you don't really know if it's working for about 90 days. Like, when it boils down to it, you really don't.
(14:18):
No matter how many letters you have behind your name and how many university degrees you have, you don't actually know if shit's going to work out until you've applied it for an extended period of time. And you could burn a ton of capital in that time figuring it out.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, that's a really good point, is that no matter what you do or no matter what change you decide to put in, you go, you have to allow it time to work. There needs to be an observation period. Even if you think you have the Greatest plan in the world. You have to watch it happen to see if it really does work. You know, aside from that, I think when I come to a company, the very first things I do to give away a little secret sauce, I ask for the financials, whatever they want to give me, whatever that can show what they have, the health of the organization financially. I asked for an expense list because I honest to God, I do the exact same thing that I just mentioned to you.
(15:06):
I go through what they're spending their money on to see what could possibly be eliminated or reduced. And the last thing that I ask for is probably my favorite. I always ask for an org chart. Just because a lot of companies can't produce it immediately, they don't have it, which I think is an issue. But once they've gone through it and they've produced the org chart, kind of the same thinking that goes through with that expense list. I look at the org chart to see anywhere where there are redundancies or too many of something. I'm not saying I like to come in and fire everybody that's working to reduce cost. That doesn't make any sense.
(15:37):
But if you ask a company for an org chart, and it's always the same thing when it's a broker, and it's always the same thing when it's a carrier. When they're a carrier, they have too many dispatchers. They're brokering their own trucks. They don't have enough contract freight. It's all spot. They've got a million dispatchers for the drivers, and all they do is try and find loads every single day on load boards. You know, when they're a carrier, they have too many carrier sales because they're not spending the time to find dedicated carriers for their freight. Maybe because they don't have dedicated freight. But regardless, they have too many carrier sales reps. And all they're doing is calling and calling and trying to find carriers to cover their loads every day.
(16:08):
So when I see the expenses with bloat or the expenses not allocated where they should be, and I see an org chart that's not one, streamlined and two full of redundancies, you can start to identify the areas where, you know, you can improve upon. And that's all it is, you know, to handle the process is to take me from the beginning and walk me through it. Let me see this from start to finish on how you do it. We can see anywhere where we shouldn't be repeating the same thing. The redundancies have to go. Anything that Takes too long to do, has to be improved upon. And those are the things where you can start to identify very early on and very easily what could I alter, what could I automate? Maybe what can I outsource or what can I eliminate?
(16:50):
And when you're going down that path, it gets really easy to start improving. And once you've improved, the savings really do come almost immediately.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
No, I mean I couldn't agree more. This is something that I probably think about more than anything in my day to day Kyle, is how do we do more with less? And then on top of that, because everybody knows what tasks take them the longest throughout their entire day, right? For us it's order entry, it's every time. Because every customer is different, right? Every customer tenders freight different. There's no one size fits all for all of this stuff. So from my perspective right now, that's our biggest time suck out there is. And there's you know, there's tools that we're exploring to introduce automation inside of our operation from there. But like that's one area as a freight broker that depending on the volume of freight that you have, like you can start there, right?
(17:41):
And then you know, like with, you know, there's other automation tools and then you know, the back office support for example, like you know like with factoring depending on the size of your organization, it's a great option opportunity to go in there and then have somebody do it. Yes, you're paying a fee for it. But again like that is just tasks off of your plate. As a business owner, instead of you going through a hundred invoices a day or whatever that looks like signing off on stuff, you can look to outsource some of those tasks internally inside of your operation to free up more of your time so you can focus on improving your cash flow, revenue generating activities.
(18:18):
Because sales always cures everything and you should not be spent and with the technology and the tools that are at people's disposal right now, Kyle, you should not sit here and say oh I have too much busy work and I can't do sales anymore. That, that's a lie. You're avoiding the pain of rejection of sales at that moment because like dude there is, there's just too much that is out there right now where you should be able to get all of your quotes taken care. I mean geez, Dan Hellman with, you know, with Tabby and those guys like that, like they have a great tool that can help automate your inbox and everything, quote all your Loads for you if that's what you want to explore. So there's tools that are out there.
(18:57):
You know Chad, with avrl, there's a bunch of people that have a lot of automation tools at your disposal right now. Hell, most load boards give, have a book it now feature, you know, like there's a lot of stuff at your disposal where you can focus on revenue generating activities. You're not busy, all right, you're bogging yourself with busy work. Because for whatever reason, I'm even more convinced of this, Kyle. The more people that I interview for this show, 95% of my day will be automated at some point. When we have the capital to disperse in that direction, 95% of our day is going to be automated. So the 5% that can't will consume 95% of our time. And that's developing relationships, carrier relationship, customer relationships.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
And it should be right. If you can free up time in your day, why would you not? How could you not? I think everybody at any organization, no matter how big they are, your role is to increase margin, everything that you do. So you can either increase the revenue by being a sales rep and go get new business, you can improve the efficiencies of the organization which frees up more time, which allows you to go get more revenue. So that is a margin creating role. Or you can do things that optimize the efficiencies of the organization. Same thing. It increases the margin of the company. I think anything that can be automated in an organization now has to be automated.
(20:24):
We talk now at table stakes of people that answer at 7pm or track and trace all these things that five years ago were groundbreaking. Now that are table stakes in a year or two from now, if you're an organization that has not automated back office tasks or some of the redundancies. And just like you mentioned it, quoting building a load, you're left in the dust.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Because the difference between a company that has and has not is not just visible but tangible. They have a cheaper, they have a cheaper rate, they can accept a lower rate, they can run leaner than you. And there's nothing you can do about that.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
No, I agree, man. I think that there's going to be two camps of individuals here in the next probably three to five years. And it's the businesses that fail are going to be the ones that don't adopt automation at all. And there's going to be a large majority of them. And then there's going to be the businesses that fail that had too much automation because they're like, oh, he. We can just fire everybody and we can just automate everything. And then. And this isn't transportation specific. This is like, across the board. I truly feel that way. I feel like there's going to be some people who over automate, and then there's going to be some who don't automate at all or don't implement any AI tools at all, and both of them are going to be obsolete.
(21:35):
I truly feel this way in three to five years because, you know, like, we're at a very unique time, though, where AI and automation is still very unknown. Yes, it's known. People are talking about it, but it's very unknown. And it's like it could actually unleash a golden age in this country that might not have been seen since the Industrial revolution, man. Like, there's a lot that you can do with this. And then this is going to spawn new jobs, new careers, new industries, and everything else that comes along with it. I just think, like, it's moving so fast, it's really challenging to put a pulse on. All right. This is the direction that it's actually heading.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Yeah. And there's obviously not just resistance to change, but there's some scar tissue, I think, inside of the industry from every time something new comes along. It's the next best thing that's going to fix all of our problems. And it never is this. And I hate saying this because this is another little saying that everybody throws out. This time it's different. I think this time it is different. But if you're at either extreme on this, it does not work. If you're in the extreme of I'm not automating anything, AI doesn't work. I'm not using it. My customers can get a hold of me whenever they want. I talk to people. Stone Age, okay? It's welcome to the Flintstones, and you might as well just take a horse to work.
(22:52):
The other people on the opposite side of that, in their own extreme, are those that want to automate every single thing and have AI do every single thing. That also doesn't work. You know, I think there is value in communicating with a human. It doesn't take too much imagination or even experience. We can all think of the times that we've called a customer service for something else and got extremely upset when we make the phone call. And on the other end, it's the bot that says, how can I help you today? And I have demoed enough of these things to know that the current AI agents don't sound like bots. It's very casual conversation. It flows, it's nice and easy. But there will be things that we understand or learn to let us know that it is a bot.
(23:29):
And then people are going to be right back at that same place. I want to talk to human. I don't want to talk to this bot. You can't automate everything. We can't make everything AI, just like we can't ignore all of it and say, no AI for me. But somewhere in the middle with all of these things that are just tasks, any task should be automated. Anything that requires a level of thought or some critical thinking, that's what remains with the human. That's the human touch. That's what we interact with. Humans are the best robots, after all. But somewhere in between those two, in that healthy balance, is what's going to be left. And those are going to be the companies that not just exist and survive, but thrive. Because those that don't are going to disappear and their business needs to go somewhere.
(24:09):
It's gonna go into the hands of the people that do optimize and automate.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Yeah, no, I'm, I'm right there with you, man. I think that there's, I'm almost like, you know, from my perspective, I'm like, man, how much freight can I move with just me? With the right automation tools, can I do 100 loads in a day by myself? Like, can I do 200 loads, 300 loads? I, I don't know, man. I, I truly don't. But I feel like with the rapid pace that things are progressing, there's a lot of opportunities that are going to come about. Right, that, like that. Right. And I feel like there will come a day. I don't know, I think, I forget who posted this out.
(24:42):
I don't know if there's going to be a one person operation doing a billion dollars a year, but I bet we get it down to the point where there's about maybe 100 people doing a billion dollars a year in freight.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Yeah, I think when I first heard that kind of stuff, somebody posed the idea of essentially freight agents that have enormous books of business because they can automate everything. And I think at some levels a lot of that will be true. If you think about maybe a potential ideal for how you can use some of these tools to increase your business. You know, like I just said, anything that's a task can be automated and will be automated, but it's not this crazy futuristic idea where we're going to have these bots that are just scanning these massive lists and behind the scenes doing everything for you, and we're going to have loads booked with Iranian terrorists that we are masquerading as some sort of a real company and all the crazy stuff that people want to put out there.
(25:38):
But if you took the time as a human and you had your book of business not just on the customer side, but you had the carriers that you've spoken to, the carriers that you've established a relationship with, you understand their business needs. The ones that you're trying to set up on a dedicated lane or continuous business with them, and you've got X amount of them. We'll say 100 for that. When you do get a load that needs to be covered, instead of having to reach out to all 100 of them or, you know, blast an email, there's tools that you can use now that help you get to those people faster. And same goes for them on the other side to receive them.
(26:11):
It's that kind of stuff that allows you to do more, faster, you know, spread yourself across many different areas all at once immediately. Those are the types of tools that make you more efficient and give you more time in your day. It's not the crazy idea of the bot's just going to do everything. For me, the AI is going to quote, build, cover, bill, collect. I don't do anything, I just flip the switch. There are customers out there that want a 100% transactional business, but there's not that many. It is a relationship business and it's a relationship business for a reason. Because there are so many variables and intangibles in this industry and those are the things that can and do go wrong. There needs to be human intervention for that stuff because that's the things that you can't automate.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
No, I mean from my seat. That is. You're very accurate when you say there's not that many people out there that just view user transaction. It's few and far between. It's not the majority. Like a lot of people like to kind of make it out there in social media. That means that happened to them one time 10 years ago and they just gave up. And that's just the way that they perceive the world now.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Somebody took a cheaper rate to them and they want to blame it on it. So it's transactional. No, you quoted $5amile for 1200 miles.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Exactly. And you know, I look at it like this. Like, you could jump on CHAT GPT or whatever right now and just start there, right? I think that will open up a lot of people's eyes. And, you know, again, if you've never built a process, a sales process for people to follow, drop that in ChatGPT. Just start small, right? Start asking the questions. It's amazing how fast that can spit out a bunch of stuff. I mean, dude, I use it every single day. I like, I truly do. If I'm having like, writer's block on, hey, what do I want to, you know, like titles for the podcast and stuff like that, I'll drop in the topics of conversation in there and say, create 10 podcast titles for me. Do I use them?
(28:04):
No, but like, it helps me piece words together and I'm like, damn, this is sick. All right, boom, this is what I'm going to use now. And you know, same thing with. If you've never built a, an internal process on how you want somebody to answer the phone inside of your organization or how do you want people to reply to an email? Just start asking chatgpt some, just basic questions. And if you don't want to start with that, take the last book you read. Because this is how I started. I took the last book I read and I said, summarize this book for me. And then it literally spit out the top 10 points of the entire book. And I'm like, holy shit, that is 100% accurate. And it is. Is it perfect? Absolutely not.
(28:45):
But again, you need to start getting comfortable with where it is. And it's not Google, you guys. It's not at all. It's probably the opposite of it, in my opinion. And you can get in there, but like, my point is you got to start small and get comfortable with it because it's here. It's going to grow and it's going to help you in a lot of areas. It's truly going to make you can make you into that all star performer that we all think we are in our head. This now actually makes it possible.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Yeah, I completely agree. Dip your toe in the water and feel around and get comfortable because it's here to stay.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, and that's it, man. Because if you don't, somebody's going to. Man, Kyle, that flew by, as it always does every time you're on this show. I feel like we could go for like three hours. But, you know, I have a day job. You have a day job of my listeners. But if you're taking on anything, man. How do people find you?
Speaker 3 (29:39):
Check me on LinkedIn. I don't really go on there too much anymore, but the messages come through.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Perfect. That works. If you guys can't find Kyle for whatever reason, hit me up. I will gladly put you guys in contact with them. That will be it for today, ladies and gentlemen, as always, if you got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show. You guys, if you're feeling really ambitious, rank the show on itunes and Spotify. Because if you saw value, your network's going to see value as well. I appreciate you guys. I love you guys. And we'll be talking to you soon. We have an outro in. Okay, so you gotta hang.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Came back with a bank Moving fast Hey Let them all cross if they hate then let them hate them Make a bigger boss Hey.
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